This is a site developed for secondary English teachers who are interested in using technology
as a tool for teaching grammar. Each page holds a grammar lesson with the technological tool
that teaches it.
We welcome comments on how each of these tools work for others. All lessons were
developed and field tested using a college English classroom at Michigan State University.
Here is a list of the software that we tested with a quick review of each one. Each entry has
tips about the advantages and the disadvantages of its use, as well as where the software
can be found.
PowerPoint (found in the Microsoft Word package)
Advantages
1. Delivers an outline of the presentation, definitions, supplementary information, examples
2. Easily saved and used later
Disadvantage
1. Can be tedious if poorly done.
2. Messages need to be kept to very, very simple points.
Google Doc Power Points (Melissa and Eric)
Advantages:
1. Great for collaboration as a group; multiple people can work on it at once.
2. Automatically saves itself every minute.
Disadvantages:
1. Limited tools to elaborate presentation.
2. Difficult to upload images.
Google Docs (Jessica & Jason)
Advantages:
1. Students and teach can access and collaborate on a document at one time.
2. Easy to use.
Disadvantages:
1. Can freak out and fail miserably when a large number of individuals try editing and making changes at the same time (like our presentation). Chapter 13 Prepositional Phrases Powerpoint:
Google docs & iMovie (Ben And Shea)
Googledocs:
Advantages:
1. Entire class can access and edit entire unit
2. Because it is on the internet students can access a unit from any location
Disadvantages:
1. When many make edits at the same time, the edits get confused
2. Can be "vandalized" without anyone knowing who did it.
Imovie:
Advantages:
1. Combines multiple mediums into an easy to use service.
2. Is engaging and entertaining
3. Can be shared on the internet
Disadvantages:
1. Takes a long time to make one
2. Is only compatible with Mac
Gliffy (Courtney and Julie)
Advantages:
1. Great for visual learners.
2. Clear organizational device.
3. Many uses (graphic organizer, financial flow charts, room layouts, etc)
Disadvantages:
1. Not very user friendly
2. Only one person can sign in at a time (one contributor at a time)
Gliffy(Eric and Melissa)
Advantages:
1) content within a spreadsheet can be moved around to dynamically show emphasis and changes in real time
2) good for presentations by a single presenter
Disadvantages:
1) since only one person can use a spreadsheet at a time, it doesn't work for interactive [dialogic] projects
2) content can no longer be manipulated once a spread sheet has been posted somewhere
Advantages
1. Shows grouping and links between information
2. Allows you to change colors of bubbles in order to show differences and separation of information.
Disadvantages
1. Hard to show hierarchy or importance since the size of the actual bubble can't be changed
2. Does not allow you to make something public so that people that are not invited as part of your group cannot see your bubble map.
Advantages:
1. Allows you to share PowerPoints created in any format to be shared without limiting what you can use (example: If you make a PowerPoint in Office 2007 you don't have to use the compatible mode which can potentially cause some components of your PowerPoint not to work. You can simply upload it to SlideShare and it will be viewable in original format)
2. Presentations can be shared with multiple people at the same time and they have control over looking through the slides.
Disadvantages:
1. People can go through the PowerPoint at their own pace which can cause problems if people get distracted or go too far ahead.
2. It is tricky to add sound to slides, if you have one already embedded in your PowerPoint you have to go through a different website to get an MP3 format of the sound and set it up through SlideShare.
Wiggio(Jesse & Kaleigh)
Can be found at: www.wiggio.com
Advantages:
1. Allows you to work as a group easily by giving a format to post messages, upload files and links. It even allows you to send out group emails or texts regarding meetings or assignments
2. Is user-friendly and has very helpful customer service
Disadvantages:
1. Must invite people to join specific groups, otherwise they won't have access.
2. Group participants must accept invitation, otherwise they won't be admitted to the group and won't see the information. Therefore, if students don't take the initiative to join they'll miss out on the information.
Advantages:
1. Allows you to create video quickly, using images and music from your own computer or from their site.
2. The images are automatically edited for you, which is usually the most time-consuming part of video creation.
Disadvantages:
1. Unless you want to pay $, you can only make a 30 second video.
2. If you don't like the video how they customize it, you can't edit it without completely changing the effects.
Audacity (Alex and Jeff) http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Advantages:
1. It brings in students with musical intelligences.
2. It lets the students create something while they are learning grammar.
Disadvantages:
1. It needs hardware that may not be readily accessible.
2. It asks the students for a lot of participation, and it is a lot of flash for a small lesson.
There are many data sets of all sorts that anyone can search for and use.
You can upload your own data set to use the data you would like to use.
There are many different forms of "visualizations" for the data sets.
Disadvantages:
A few times the site was "unable to create visualizations." Not all visualizations could be used on all data sets.
When searching got data sets there are too many, some of which are not tagged correctly, making choosing a data set difficult.
Classmarker.com (Kim and Ashley)
www.classmarker.com
Advantages:
1. Many ways to test students, true and false, multiple choice, etc.
2. Easy to use for teacher and students
3. Students can use it at home for review
Disadvantages:
1. Students could cheat.
2. Required to pay for extended results
Empressr.com A free, no-installation online Power Point tool. Advantages: It is easy to use and allows you to access your presentation from any computer with internet access. You need only complete a brief registration, but others can view your presentation without registering (and once “published,” it is searchable by title/topic). Disadvantages: It is a more rudimentary version of Power Point-- you can’t do anything very fancy with it (though it serves its basic purpose as a presentation tool well). There really are no other disadvantages! Chatzy.com A free, no-installation online chatting tool. Advantages: As the administrator of the chatroom, you can set it up so that only those who have been invited by e-mail may enter; this means it is a closed, controlled space, ideal for the classroom environment. Also, this is a good way to get participation from EVERY student during instruction and gauge overall comprehension across all of the students in order to decide if they’re ready for you to move on to the next point. You can also save the conversations and refer to them later. Disadvantages You can only post text—no images or multimedia of any kind. Students would have to be able to handle themselves maturely, since anything they type will be up on everyone’s screens and/or on the projection screen.
Quizlet.com (Rachel & Zach)
Advantages:
1. Allows students to repeatedly visit concepts and content in order to check their understanding.
2. Doesn't just offer a traditional method of quizzing and reviewing, but includes fun ways of doing so (competitive games). This also adds the element of competition for students who are motivated in this way.
3. Allows students to create their own review materials. This helps them learn in two ways: they are creating content to review in a way that they will understand and they are able to constantly revisit this self-created content.
4. Students can check their progress, on their own private account.
Disadvantages
1. Harder to incorporate contextual learning of grammar elements.
2. No way to check if students are learning, besides monitoring them directly (no method of submitting quiz results or answers to a main page).
3. It is sometimes tricky to find data sets, when you are looking for a very specific one.
as a tool for teaching grammar. Each page holds a grammar lesson with the technological tool
that teaches it.
We welcome comments on how each of these tools work for others. All lessons were
developed and field tested using a college English classroom at Michigan State University.
Here is a list of the software that we tested with a quick review of each one. Each entry has
tips about the advantages and the disadvantages of its use, as well as where the software
can be found.
PowerPoint (found in the Microsoft Word package)
Advantages1. Delivers an outline of the presentation, definitions, supplementary information, examples
2. Easily saved and used later
Disadvantage
1. Can be tedious if poorly done.
2. Messages need to be kept to very, very simple points.
Google Doc Power Points (Melissa and Eric)
Advantages:
1. Great for collaboration as a group; multiple people can work on it at once.
2. Automatically saves itself every minute.
Disadvantages:
1. Limited tools to elaborate presentation.
2. Difficult to upload images.
Google Docs (Jessica & Jason)
Advantages:
1. Students and teach can access and collaborate on a document at one time.
2. Easy to use.
Disadvantages:
1. Can freak out and fail miserably when a large number of individuals try editing and making changes at the same time (like our presentation).
Chapter 13 Prepositional Phrases Powerpoint:
Google docs & iMovie (Ben And Shea)
Googledocs:
Advantages:
1. Entire class can access and edit entire unit
2. Because it is on the internet students can access a unit from any location
Disadvantages:
1. When many make edits at the same time, the edits get confused
2. Can be "vandalized" without anyone knowing who did it.
Imovie:
Advantages:
1. Combines multiple mediums into an easy to use service.
2. Is engaging and entertaining
3. Can be shared on the internet
Disadvantages:
1. Takes a long time to make one
2. Is only compatible with Mac
Gliffy (Courtney and Julie)
Advantages:
1. Great for visual learners.
2. Clear organizational device.
3. Many uses (graphic organizer, financial flow charts, room layouts, etc)
Disadvantages:
1. Not very user friendly
2. Only one person can sign in at a time (one contributor at a time)
Gliffy (Eric and Melissa)
Advantages:
1) content within a spreadsheet can be moved around to dynamically show emphasis and changes in real time
2) good for presentations by a single presenter
Disadvantages:
1) since only one person can use a spreadsheet at a time, it doesn't work for interactive [dialogic] projects
2) content can no longer be manipulated once a spread sheet has been posted somewhere
Bubbl.us (Jesse & Kaleigh)
Can be found at: http://bubbl.us/Advantages
1. Shows grouping and links between information
2. Allows you to change colors of bubbles in order to show differences and separation of information.
Disadvantages
1. Hard to show hierarchy or importance since the size of the actual bubble can't be changed
2. Does not allow you to make something public so that people that are not invited as part of your group cannot see your bubble map.
Slideshare (Jesse & Kaleigh)
Can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/Advantages:
1. Allows you to share PowerPoints created in any format to be shared without limiting what you can use (example: If you make a PowerPoint in Office 2007 you don't have to use the compatible mode which can potentially cause some components of your PowerPoint not to work. You can simply upload it to SlideShare and it will be viewable in original format)
2. Presentations can be shared with multiple people at the same time and they have control over looking through the slides.
Disadvantages:
1. People can go through the PowerPoint at their own pace which can cause problems if people get distracted or go too far ahead.
2. It is tricky to add sound to slides, if you have one already embedded in your PowerPoint you have to go through a different website to get an MP3 format of the sound and set it up through SlideShare.
Wiggio (Jesse & Kaleigh)
Can be found at: www.wiggio.comAdvantages:
1. Allows you to work as a group easily by giving a format to post messages, upload files and links. It even allows you to send out group emails or texts regarding meetings or assignments
2. Is user-friendly and has very helpful customer service
Disadvantages:
1. Must invite people to join specific groups, otherwise they won't have access.
2. Group participants must accept invitation, otherwise they won't be admitted to the group and won't see the information. Therefore, if students don't take the initiative to join they'll miss out on the information.
Animoto (Mike and Rachel)
Animoto
Advantages:1. Allows you to create video quickly, using images and music from your own computer or from their site.
2. The images are automatically edited for you, which is usually the most time-consuming part of video creation.
Disadvantages:
1. Unless you want to pay $, you can only make a 30 second video.
2. If you don't like the video how they customize it, you can't edit it without completely changing the effects.
Audacity (Alex and Jeff)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Advantages:
1. It brings in students with musical intelligences.
2. It lets the students create something while they are learning grammar.
Disadvantages:
1. It needs hardware that may not be readily accessible.
2. It asks the students for a lot of participation, and it is a lot of flash for a small lesson.
ToonDoo (Lisa and Kristin)
ToonDooAdvantages:
1. It allows students to be creative and use art and humor in the classroom.
2. It is very easy to use.
Disadvantages:
1. The site provides limited character options.
2. Students may become distracted when using it.
Many Eyes (Cathy and Lauren)
ManyEyes
Power Point Presentation
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Classmarker.com (Kim and Ashley)
www.classmarker.com
Advantages:
1. Many ways to test students, true and false, multiple choice, etc.
2. Easy to use for teacher and students
3. Students can use it at home for review
Disadvantages:
1. Students could cheat.
2. Required to pay for extended results
Empressr.com
A free, no-installation online Power Point tool.
Advantages: It is easy to use and allows you to access your presentation from any computer with internet access. You need only complete a brief registration, but others can view your presentation without registering (and once “published,” it is searchable by title/topic).
Disadvantages: It is a more rudimentary version of Power Point-- you can’t do anything very fancy with it (though it serves its basic purpose as a presentation tool well). There really are no other disadvantages!
Chatzy.com
A free, no-installation online chatting tool.
Advantages: As the administrator of the chatroom, you can set it up so that only those who have been invited by e-mail may enter; this means it is a closed, controlled space, ideal for the classroom environment. Also, this is a good way to get participation from EVERY student during instruction and gauge overall comprehension across all of the students in order to decide if they’re ready for you to move on to the next point. You can also save the conversations and refer to them later.
Disadvantages
You can only post text—no images or multimedia of any kind. Students would have to be able to handle themselves maturely, since anything they type will be up on everyone’s screens and/or on the projection screen.
Quizlet.com (Rachel & Zach)
Advantages:
1. Allows students to repeatedly visit concepts and content in order to check their understanding.
2. Doesn't just offer a traditional method of quizzing and reviewing, but includes fun ways of doing so (competitive games). This also adds the element of competition for students who are motivated in this way.
3. Allows students to create their own review materials. This helps them learn in two ways: they are creating content to review in a way that they will understand and they are able to constantly revisit this self-created content.
4. Students can check their progress, on their own private account.
Disadvantages
1. Harder to incorporate contextual learning of grammar elements.
2. No way to check if students are learning, besides monitoring them directly (no method of submitting quiz results or answers to a main page).
3. It is sometimes tricky to find data sets, when you are looking for a very specific one.